Getting Into Training Keeps Them Busy

April 18, 1985|By Chris Bruton of The Sentinel Staff

MERRITT ISLAND — In homes and clubs across the nation, railroading history is replayed daily as miniature locomotives pull miniature railroad cars along snow-covered rails, through tunnels, over rivers, past oil wells and through tiny towns.

For Fred Harris, 66, model railroading represents a career that might have been. ''If I had not gone into the Air Force I was going to be a railroad engineer,'' he said.

Since his retirement in 1970, Harris has devoted himself to model railroading. His ''railroad'' now covers two rooms of his home at 215 Trinidad Ave.

The Harrises were stationed in Colorado Springs, Colo., at the time of his retirement. He lost a toss of a coin and moved to Florida with his wife, Dottie. Harris said his choice would have been to remain in Colorado.

His layout is built at chest level so viewing is easy and he can work on the layout from underneath.

Harris said he gets ideas from other railroaders and from reading books and magazines on scenery and layouts.

''I try to stay abreast of things so that I don't goof when I'm building a layout,'' he said.

Harris often spends seven hours a day on his layout because he is rebuilding new scenery.

The model railroad hobbyist advances from assembling kits to building from scratch and then to producing realistic scenery.

Locomotives and cars are built shiny black and then artistically weathered with such paints as Dirty Di-Sol mixed with Grimy-Black. Special care is taken around the stack and smoke box to produce the proper effect of a railroad in much use. The tenderbox is weathered to simulate spillage, he said.

Not everyone waits until retirement to begin model railroading.

Until his retirement in 1968, Col. Grover Stillwagon, 68, 675 N. Tropical Trail, an Air Force chaplain, carried a footlocker filled with railroad cars whenever possible during his military career. ''I had enough for a small layout,'' he said. ''I set it up in Japan. I bought some equipment when I was there and also when I was in England.''

Stillwagon says he works at his train hobby sporadically because of his other activities. Since retiring to Florida, Stillwagon has served as pastor of two Brevard County Baptist churches. He also finds time to keep up with his hobby of building and restoring clocks.

He works on his railroad about once a month. ''It's a hobby that lasts a lifetime and you can keep building on it. I have subscribed to the magazine, Model Railroader, since 1947. It's more than just running a train -- it's building equipment, roadways and scenery,'' he said.

''All of my life I have been interested in trains. My dad worked for the Badger Lumber Company in Kansas City, Mo., and it was beside the major shops and interchanges of railroads coming into the city. I used to sit on a fence post and watch the trains go by. I would sit on that fence all day long -- just watching trains.''